Chinese artist Kong Ning poses in a costume symbolizing a butterfly, which is decorated with 365 masks on its wings to represent the number of days in a year, during her performance art at the Badaling section of the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing January 1, 2015. Kong, whose works include themes related to China's air pollution problem, named her new performance art “Hua Die” (transforming into a butterfly) and performed it on the first day of the new year as she hopes that China has clean air for this year. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

People look at sharks from an underwater room structure installed in the Aquarium of Paris, France, March 14, 2016. Airbnb and the Aquarium of Paris offer contest winners a night underwater sleeping with sharks and create a research platform for “misunderstood” shark species. (Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters)

Frander Arroyo, select wings of butterflies at Blue Morpho Butterfly House in Alajuela, Costa Rica, March 10, 2016. According to Arroyo, owner of Blue Morpho Butterfly House, he collects dead butterflies from his garden to mount as handicraft like earrings, necklaces, paintings and rings for export with prices ranging from $12 to $16 a piece. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)

Paul Villinski is a professional visual artist who has created studio and large-scale artworks for more than three decades. Villinski was born in York, Maine, USA, in 1960, son of an Air Force navigator. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. A scenic route through the educational system included stops at Phillips Exeter Academy and the Massachusetts College of Art, and a BFA with honors from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1984. He lives with his partner, the painter Amy Park, and their son, Lark, in their studios in Long Island City, NY.

Model Jessie May Smart poses with Blue Morpho butterflys, ahead of the opening of, “Butterflies in the Glasshouse”, at RHS Wisley in Wisley, Britain, January 13, 2017. (Photo by Peter Nicholls/Reuters)